Book Review - The Bean Trees

The Bean Trees The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a book club selection and I'm very happy it was chosen. I've read The Poisonwood Bible by Kingsolver and really enjoyed it so I expected to like this as well. For a first novel, it's really quite good.

The story revolves (mostly) around a young girl who leaves a small town in Kentucky to end up in Tucson, Arizona. Along the way, she acquires a toddler girl that she takes responsibility for. That part was a bit far fetched. However, the rest of the story was believable as long as you remembered it was published in 1988. Some of the situations wouldn't happen in today's world.

A great character study with rich descriptions of Tucson that are very accurate. As they should be since Kingsolver lived there for many years.

Interestingly, this was classified as a Teen Classic at the library. While it didn't have anything inappropriate for teens, it seems like it should be an adult book.

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